


Take a Step Forward

by queueingtocomplain



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Dark Castle, F/M, Rumbelle Secret Santa 2014, kwallox, shameless fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-21
Updated: 2014-12-21
Packaged: 2018-03-02 13:48:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,394
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2814212
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/queueingtocomplain/pseuds/queueingtocomplain
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Rumple jumps to the wrong conclusions, and Belle tries to be brave.</p>
<p>Written for the 2014 Rumbelle Secret Santa on Tumblr.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Take a Step Forward

**Author's Note:**

  * For [kwallox](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=kwallox).



> Rumbelle Secret Santa prompt for kwallox: Christmas Day at Dark Castle

There was something about dealing with Regina that always rubbed him up the wrong way. Something in her manner just grated at him, made him irritable and even more obnoxious than usual (which, as Rumplestiltskin would be the first to admit, was a considerable achievement). Although in fairness, he supposed that a large part of her abrasive personality was his own fault. Just because his former apprentice had chosen the path that she now walked, it didn’t mean that he hadn’t provided with a very specific map. So perhaps her rubbing him up the wrong way was just a necessary side-effect of him rubbing her up the wrong way. Not that Rumplestiltskin would ever want to rub Regina up in _any_ way…

But before that thought process on the laws of equal and opposite reaction could get any more nauseatingly off-track, he was brought up short by the presence of something never normally found in the Dark Castle nowadays. Silence.

Well, perhaps it would be better described as the absence of noise, but this silence was without doubt a presence. It floated through the corridors, wound itself around pedestals and table legs. Prickled at his throat. How could silence in his home oppress him so? He had lived with it for centuries, barely registering the constant weight that threatened now to crush him, to overwhelm him, to swallow him up and drag him down into a raging sea of nothingness.

Until she came. She came with her sobs that somehow reached him through half a dozen walls and floors of stone. She came with the rustling of her dress, the long thick skirt constantly hindering her work, and threatening to trip her. That was why he’d had to give her new clothes. He had dealt for a caretaker who was alive and well and capable of doing her duties, not one lying broken at the foot of the stairs, her strings cut. And if that image had threatened to choke him the first time that he saw her teeter at the top of the staircase, well, that was clearly the magic in him objecting to the idea of a deal unfulfilled. Nothing more. Naturally.

But after that she came with the click of her shoes on the marble floors, and the swish of her broom as she started to work around him, by him, close to him. She came with the clatter of pots and crash of dishes and a few surprisingly graphic curses as she learnt her way around his ostentatiously large kitchen. She came with her laughter, an innocent giggle that seemed so incongruous as a response to his dark, wicked jokes. And it seemed to be her sense of humour as well, because she laughed with him. Kindness. Not malice. How long had it been since anyone had shown him kindness? Had shown him friendship? She had burst into his life and torn down his curtains and brought the light flooding in, and how was he supposed to fight her? When she came with her music; the tunes that she hummed under her breath as she read, not even aware of it; the old ditties that she sang to herself as she hung up laundry (and so what if he did watch her?); the nursery rhymes as she swept, the filthy sea shanty that he was treated to a charming rendition of the night that she thought that he was gone and she decided to do a very thorough inventory of his wine cellar.

Belle had brought sound back into his life, and she was never, ever silent.

So why was it silent now?

She was gone.

It was the only explanation. He had been gone a little longer than expected, and she had seized her chance to escape. She had realised that the initial spells which had kept her trapped had been lifted when they chased the thief into the woods. He had meant to reinstate them, he really had. As soon as they got back. Only, he had given her a library and she had taken his hand and suddenly he had serious difficulty remembering anything about… well, anything. Anything that wasn’t how soft and warm her hand had been, resting in his. Pale, delicate skin that just made his own cursed hide look even more obscene.

Skin that was gone. Belle was gone.

He had thought…

He had really thought that maybe, just maybe…

Maybe what? That she would want to stay? That just because she tolerated him, she would want to stay? The poor girl had needed a coping technique to survive the beast, and she had chosen friendship. The pretence of friendship, rather. Only that. Only ever that.

And now she was gone.

He could go after her. He _should_ after her. Foolish girl, thinking that she could outrun the Dark One. Had she forgotten how easily he had tracked down that thief? He stalked over to his chair at the long table, and it only took a moment to find a single long hair, clinging to the fabric. She must have left it there the last time that she leant over his shoulder as he inspected some artefact or other, or perused an ancient tome. She always wanted to know what he had brought back from his deals, where he had gone, what he had seen. She had always been… _interested_ in him. Or not. Clearly, that had been faked as well.

Rumplestiltskin shook himself out of the memories, finally paying attention to the hair in his hands. Gods, he had been caressing it, slowly running it through his fingertips. Delicately, delicately. Couldn’t break it. Couldn’t break it like he’d clearly broken her. He had taken a flower and locked it away in the dark to wilt. No wonder she had left before she had completely rotted.

He should go after her.

He collapsed into his chair, burying his head in his hands.

Silence.

Only silence.

No, not silence. Footsteps. Very familiar footsteps. The click-clack that meant silver heels on polished wooden boards. The footsteps that meant-

“Rumple?”

He choked, springing to his feet and whirling around, ready to berate and scold and maybe just drink in the sight of… Of a large green bush, apparently. A large green bush with a very pink face peeping through. A large green bush with Belle-sized legs poking out the bottom. A large green bush that appeared to be disintegrating before his eyes, before it took a couple more lurching steps and cascaded onto the table. Okay, so perhaps it wasn’t a bush after all. But really, what was he supposed to think when she insisted on being so tiny?

Tiny and blue-eyed and rosy-cheeked from the cold and there. She was _there_.

“Belle,” he croaked, and really, he should be able to sound more intimidating than that. He was the Dark One, for crying out loud. He made grown men tremble and mothers clutch their children close in fright. He made warriors run and kings quake in their boots. He did not feel weak at the knees because the pretty maid hadn’t run away, hadn’t left him.

“I was just out in the gardens. I didn’t know when you’d be back. I, um, I hoped you wouldn’t mind if I decorated.” She bit her lip, and Rumplestiltskin wondered for a wild moment  
whether she had some kind of magic that he’d been previously unaware of. No ordinary mortal should be able to make such a powerful sorcerer feel hot and cold and a little bit floaty, with such an innocent action.

“Decorate?” That was good. Words were good.

She wasn’t meeting his eyes, and he desperately resisted the urge to turn her head to face him, to slide his hand up the side of her delicate face and thread his fingers into her hair, to let him drown in the depths of her eyes. He could fall into those eyes and be transformed into something entirely new in the reflection. He didn’t know what he’d become in there, didn’t know what kind of man or monster would find its way back out.

“For the Winter Solstice. I didn’t know if you celebrated it, but in the Marchlands we used to decorate our homes with evergreen plants, to remember that life prevails. Even through the coldest winter.” She gestured, a little feebly, at the piles of leaves and branches scattered across the width of his table.

“So you commemorate the life of these plants by cutting them down and bringing them in to wither and die?” Now this, this he could deal with. Teasing Belle, and waiting for her to flush with annoyance and reprimand him. If he was lucky, she might even stamp her foot in anger, and toss her hair, and step closer in order to berate him.

But no, she didn’t, because Belle always did the unexpected thing. He might have been side-tracked into wondering whether it could truly be the unexpected thing if she always did it, but he was suddenly too distracted.

Because she took his hand in hers with that little smile that cut through every layer of armour that he had. And then to cap it all, she giggled, with that laugh of hers that plunged into his chest and plucked at his withered old heart, and really she must be some kind of powerful enchantress.

“Perhaps it’s a little silly. But it’s a tradition. Don’t you have any traditions for today? Any ways that you liked to celebrate?”

He hadn’t celebrated the Winter Solstice since Bae…left. They’d never had enough money for feasts or extravagant gifts, but Rumplestiltskin had done what he could. He would craft a wooden figurine, or a rag ball for his son, and they would stay up all night until they saw the sun rise over the snow-laden fields, sipping at cups of spiced wine (heavily watered down for Bae), their one indulgence. And they had decorated with some of the plants that were strewn before him. Some were unfamiliar, but some he recognised. The holly, the ivy.

The mistletoe. His mouth was suddenly very, very dry.

Did it have the same meaning in the Marchlands? Surely not. Surely not, or she wouldn’t be clutching a sprig, gazing at him so hopefully. She couldn’t want what it looked like she wanted. Not from him. He was a monster. She was some perfect fairy – what a fairy should be, not one of those bothersome insects who slavishly followed their blue taskmaster. Her lips would blacken and bruise under his. She would crumble, and he would break her. She would scream and slap him, and he would still want to keep her forever, so he would spend forever knowing that he was the one kind of beast that he’d hoped never to become. Belle decided her own fate. He could never make such a decision for her.

“I… do what you like, dearie. But bring me some straw first. I need to spin.” That would clear his head. That would help him get those piercing blue eyes away from the forefront of his mind. That would help him to forget just how the thought that she was gone had ripped the ground out from under his feet.

But when he glanced back at her face, her expression had shifted. The hope had gone, had morphed into something fiercer, something stronger. Determination. Oh no. That was never a good sign.

“Okay, Rumple,” and her sweet little smile was just too much. He couldn’t breathe. When had he stopped breathing? “I’m just going to hang this.” And she turned on her heel, and strode over to her couch, the one that had been there already, the one that he never would have put there just so that she had something comfortable to read. That was fine. That was good. She’d put it in her personal space, where she wouldn’t expect him to go. She didn’t expect anything from him. All he had to do was walk over to the wheel and spin all of his troubles away. Spin those haunting eyes away.

Except that she had to walk back past him to fetch the straw. Why hadn’t he thought of that? But how was he supposed to think of it, to expect that she’d turn, and grab him by the shoulders, and press a sudden, firm kiss on his cheek?

Her lips. On his cheek. Of her own volition, without the mistletoe.

He was the Dark One. He was immortal. No slip of a girl could harm him, so why had his heart stopped, as surely as if she’d plunged his dagger into his chest?  
“I’ll, um, I’ll be over there for the evening.” She took a deep breath, and he could see a flash of fear in her. But that was the difference between them. She was capable of fighting the fear. She was able to do the brave thing. She took a slow, shuddering breath, and then lifted her head to stare at him in the eye. “You’re welcome to join me if you want to read as well. If you’re ready.”

But joining her would mean sitting on the couch with her, under the...under the…but that would mean…

She wouldn’t take this step. She had always been the one to reach out, but not this time. She needed him to take this initiative, and he didn’t know if he could. He was a coward, and she was strong and brave and beautiful.

He was frozen where he stood as she marched back over to the couch, dumping a bundle of straw by his wheel as she went. The greenery still covered the table, and he wondered if she even intended to hang the rest of it at all, or if this entire thing was a ruse to take them to this situation. This situation of Belle and mistletoe and an invitation. An invitation, but not a command. Not quite even a request. She couldn’t take every step towards him. She needed him to step forward too. And perhaps he would. Perhaps he could. Perhaps soon, he would be strong enough. Not yet, not just yet, but…soon. Yes. Soon.

Rumplestiltskin gave Belle a little smile of his own as he settled down to spin.


End file.
